The intention on this forum is to gather useful tips that will help us start a short term women's aikido class

Well, all I can do is wish you every success and hope you share your observations (good or bad).

My own peripheral experience has only been with a couple of segregated dojos (non-aikido, one female one gay) and there wasn't evidence of any "feeding" into the main association going on until the practitioners had been there for years. To be fair, they did manage to retain some students who I feel may have left if the option wasn't there.

As for the "negative comments" - sorry, but bound to happen. If someone had asked how to attract and retain more martial-orientated young males in aikido , it would have garnered the same amount of controversy. (In fact if you do a quick thread search, you'll find that young aggressive males have been often been singled out as the main problem facing aikido in the 21st century, so may have gained more approbation)